Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
I get that communists regimes have killed a lot of people but communism as an ideology doesn't advocate for ethnic cleansing. Nazism does.
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Yeah communism as an ideology celebrates crossing and even abandoning national, ethnic and gender boundaries. This is also the way the far-left activists of today see things, which I think everyone knows.
Which is why I think suggesting that somehow the current far-left activist generation would be supportive of Soviet style genocides is really just intellectually dishonest and thus pretty bad argumentation.
That's not to say there are no problems with the far-left ideology, there are a lot, but those are not actually problems. In fact I consider those attempts to attack the far left to be ridiculous bad faith arguments.
I also think pretty much everything people say about the violence of the far-left is based on a certain amount of ignorance and misunderstanding. This isn't really an accusation because the far-left activist community actually has thought a lot, lot more about the use of violence as political tool than pretty much any other group. There's a ton more nuance to political violence (and really violence in general) than people commonly realize.
Really the only other group that has spent such an extensive time considering the use of violence as a political tool is the Nazis. (Quite specifically Nazis, not fascists in general.)
One of the things that make the far-left and far-right so opposite is their relationship to violence. For the far-left it's considered a necessary evil, the use of which is to be constantly analyzed and examined, as is the question of valid targets for certain levels of violence. (That's not to say I agree with I the far-left tactics or that they always get things right. But they do try, hard.)
Somewhat unfortunately this is impossible to see from the outside, as for example the media and the police that come into conflict with the far-left are so nonchalant about facts and disinterested in the far-left considerations.
(I have a lot of disrespect towards the police forces for their tendency to regurarly outright lie about facts surrounding protests to justify and cover up for their failed responses. This tendency to lie is a major reason why in so many protests today the police are actively trying to block media access to areas of protest. Attacks against media by the police are sadly also extremely common. In Hamburg for example this was a major issue. (Which is one of the reasons for the major media backlash against the police even in conservative German media.)
All that said; "what do you expect". The far-left has put so much effort into creating tactics which exploit the weak spots of police ability to response, while simultaneously not doing enough to curb the hotheads who actively provoke the police. Excessive use of force is what you get as result, and trying to cover up for it is the result of that. I could really go on about the morality and reality in the dynamics between protesters and authorities, but that's a really, really long story and this is already turning into a long post.)
The key difference between the far-left and the Nazis is that for the Nazis, use of violence is a central part of their ideology and a primary tool to be used not as little as needed, but as much as they can get away with. Nazis (already in the 20's and 30's) also on their side put a lot of thought into how to use violence effectively in a democratic society, but their goal is specifically to turn the society into a place where they can get away with violence against ethnic minorities and other undesirable groups while turning the society in general against those same minorities and the people who oppose them. Even though your average street Nazi tends to kind of dumb, their leaders usually know how to read, and they share these ideas. For example the Nazis in Charlottesville specifically mentioned using tactics adopted from the Golden Dawn in Greece. (Who btw came quite close to succeeding in taking over their country.)
There's quite a bit more to that story too, but there's a larp I have to go to so I have limited time
I guess if there's a point I'd like to make it's this:
- The use of physical force is a lot more complicated topic than the binary of "violent / non-violent", and there is no way you can really understand what went on for example in Charlottesville without at least some personal experience and understanding of the goals and methods of the groups involved.
- The lack of understanding regarding violence is a problem. That lack of understanding is one of the reasons why I think for example the whole discussion around US policing is borderline impossible. I think the media should do a lot more to give the people at least a chance to understand the nuances. Then people could make informed decisions on what they agree with and what they don't.